MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released author James L. Witherell’s encyclopedic history of the Tour de France “When Heroes Were Giants: 100 Tours de France.”

About the Book:By far the most complete history of the Tour de France ever written–in any language–When Heroes Were Giants: 100 Tours de France takes the reader into the heart of every “Grande Boucle” (Big Loop) held since 1903. Exhaustively researched over the past fifteen years, this account of the world’s greatest sporting event not only covers every race in great detail, it also explores how the Tour de France became a country’s national obsession–and why.

Draconian rules, bitter rivalries, and even sabotage are all part of the Tour’s colorful history, and When Heroes Were Giants captures all of the event’s action and drama. Every chapter opens with a look into feuds, collaborations, and other subplots that often had a direct bearing on the outcome of the race. The recounting of each Tour de France then includes every stage of every race, often punctuated with colorful quotes from the riders, the journalists, and even the race officials.

At the end of each race is a comprehensive set of results that includes the winner of every major classification (plus a few minor ones), prize money, and even details about the race-winning bicycle.

For the Tour de France trivia buff the story of each race also includes a complete rundown of changes made and milestones achieved during that particular event. These interesting tidbits run the gamut, detailing every Tour-related fact from superlatives to oddities, and even superhuman efforts–some of which turned out to be too good to be true. Any fan of the Tour de France can’t help but be intrigued by this book; from the heroes and villains of the great race to the riders who struggled just to start, it’s all here.

About the Book:
Have you ever wondered how to raise monarch butterflies? Author and butterfly farmer Sue Fox McGovern takes you through all of the steps from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. All of this can be done in your own backyard.

What others are saying:
Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to learn about and witness the life cycle of the butterfly. This has been an amazing experience. I just wanted to share with you the pictures we took of Eduardo, my butterfly. —John

Just wanted to say thank you again for the informational evening in your yard on butterflies. So many things one takes for granted in this world and you brought to my attention amazing things about butterflies—especially the monarch. I am definitely going to try and create a habitat in my yard. My grandson is taking good care of his caterpillar. —Mary Ellen

I’d just like to thank you again for taking the time and effort to teach us about butterflies on my birthday weekend. What they represent in my life is incredibly meaningful, and the surprise of getting to witness and learn about them was something that has immediately gone down in my list of favorite memories of my entire life. —Marie

Julianna came home from school today and said the science teacher thought it would be great if Julianna brought in a caterpillar for the class to watch its transformation. Again, thanks for engaging Julianna in this process! —Christine

My caterpillar is big and beautiful, but I guess unless he decides to start the change tonight I will need to grab more milkweed from you. Thanks for this fun experience. I have a friend in her 80s who would really enjoy this. —Denise

Henry (Henrietta) the monarch butterfly has left us! Thank you for that experience. I’ve been talking about it all weekend. —Chris

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Children’s author Mike Sgrignoli and his son Ethan, the illustrator, have signed with Sunbury Press to publish their Dinorific Poetry series. The Mechanicsburg publisher of trade paperback and eBooks has reissued the first of two volumes, to be followed by a third currently in the works.

ABOUT THE BOOK:“Dinorific Poetry Volume 1: Stories of Ancient Animals Created by a Father and Son” features ten delightful poetic stories conceived by Michael coupled with twenty-two of Ethan’s imaginative watercolors. You’ll meet Diplodocus, Dimetrodon, Styracosaurus, Pachycephalosaur and a host of other unique and admittedly obscure dinosaurs. There’s even a story about where the skull of a Plesiosaur got mistakenly placed. Dig in!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR:
The Sgrignolis have risen to local acclaim thanks to their positive message and appearances at local schools, bookstores, childcare centers and other venues.

Michael is a poet, musician, forward-thinking, public-speaking, rugged individualist who strives to be the best darn daddy ever while balancing a full time job. Ethan is a fun-loving, imaginative, animal lover who (his father believes) IS the best darn son ever. This father/son literary project has provided the setting to engender greater mutual respect and has delivered an even more precious gift: more time spent together.

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released author Dennis Herrick’s novel “Winter of the Metal People – The Untold Story of America’s First Indian War.”

About the Book:The first named war between the Europeans and the Native Americans was the nearly forgotten Tiguex War, which Spaniards and their Mexican Indian allies fought in 1540-42 against the Pueblo Indians along the Rio Grande, between present-day Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico.

This historical novel “Winter of the Metal People” presents the first account of the war written from the Puebloan point of view. It follows a young Pueblo warrior who reluctantly takes leadership of his people in a time of crisis, overcoming self-doubt to lead Puebloans in successful guerilla warfare against the Spaniards.

Praise for “Winter of the Metal People” and Dennis Herrick:
“A riveting historical novel of immense scholarship and insight. Dennis Herrick makes the story of the first American Indians in the West to face the military might of European forces as vivid and real as if Coronado’s expedition had ridden out of Mexico yesterday. Winter of the Metal People will forever influence your perception of the stunning landscapes and rich cultures of the Southwest.”
—Margaret Coel, author of Killing Custer

“In Winter of the Metal People Dennis Herrick, journalist and award-winning writer of fiction, offers us a consummately humane novel of the first encounters between Pueblo peoples of the Southwest and a European, African, and Native American expedition led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in the early 1540s. Herrick skillfully brings the Native side of those encounters into vivid focus. We are brought to imagine the complexity and variety of Pueblo reactions as they struggle to come to grips with the foreign presence and how it violently impacts their lives and traditions.”
—Richard Flint, Historian, Author of No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada

“A vivid historical novel that brings to life the epic winter of 1540-41 as Spanish and Pueblo Indian worlds first collided. Herrick’s narrative—driven by extant annals of the Coronado expedition, recent archaeological research, and Pueblo accounts—is the closest we will ever get to standing on a hill above an ancient Pueblo community and witnessing the gritty reality of history. It is a masterful eye opener.”
—David E. Stuart, Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
Author of Prehistoric New Mexico, Anasazi America, and The Ancient Southwest

“With Winter of the Metal People Dennis Herrick has peeled back the familiar to expose the fascinating. As he alternates viewpoints between Spanish conquistadors and the first Americans they found in thriving pueblos, Herrick provides essential reading for anyone who would understand the collision of cultures that defines so much of what see all around us today.”
Jim Belshaw, Author of Trickster in the Front Yard and Closing the Chart

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released author John Cressler’s “Emeralds of the Alhambra: Book One of the Anthems of al-Andalus Series.”

About the Book:How could we forget? We live in a world being torn apart by religious tensions and fanaticism, yet we managed to forget that for hundreds of years Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together in peace, sharing languages and customs, embracing a level of tolerance and mutual respect unheard of today. Working together, these three peoples spawned one of the great intellectual and cultural flowerings of history. When and where? Medieval Spain. Our aching world desperately needs to recall this forgotten fact, these rich possibilities.

Emeralds of the Alhambra, a historical novel, reawakens this remarkable era via the relationship between William Chandon, a wounded Christian knight brought to the Sultan’s court in Granada, and the strong-willed Layla al-Khatib, who is on a quest to become the first female Sufi Muslim mystic in a male-dominated society. As Chandon’s influence at court grows, he becomes trapped between his forbidden love for Layla, his Christian heritage, the demands of chivalry, and political expediency. Chandon must make a choice between love and honor, peace and war, life and death, a choice which ultimately will seal Granada’s fate as the last surviving stronghold of Muslim Spain.

Emeralds is set in the resplendent Alhambra Palace in Granada during the Castilian Civil War (1367-1369), a time when, improbably, Muslims took up their swords to fight alongside Christians.

Praise for “Emeralds of the Alhambra”:
“A deeply moving and enlightening novel on the co-existence of religions.”
─Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

“…Cressler has woven an imaginative and intricately persuasive story…[a] vivid and gorgeous world of romance, intrigue, murder and negotiations between multiple religions in medieval Spain…[a] story of love between human beings, for God, and for the creation so graciously bestowed on us. A thoroughly gripping and engaging first novel.”
─Professor Susan Abraham, Harvard Divinity School

“… More than ever, we need stories like Cressler tells, confirming the transformative power of relationships. Cressler illuminates the beauty and meaning found in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, reviving an important shared history…”
─Eboo Patel, Founder and President, Interfaith Youth Core

“…A work of honesty and sensitivity that renders in depth, and with painterly detail, the living contours of a great civilization that the modern world needs to re-discover…A moving story of love across boundaries, set at a critical point in history…with unmatched and vivid descriptions of place, lifestyle, manners and practices…”
─Salma Khadra Jayyusi, poet, writer, and literary historian.
Founder and Director of EAST-WEST NEXUS/PROTA for the
dissemination in English of Arabic cultural achievements

“[Cressler’s] compelling characters and vivid imagery bring this tale of intrigue and barrier-breaking relationships to life in a way that even a visit to the Alhambra did not…[Celebrates] the power of love to forge human hearts into timeless bonds.”
─Cathy Devlin Crosby, Cofounder of Neshama Interfaith Center

“A captivating love story that speaks deeply to the purest and most humane places of the heart. A highly enjoyable and enthusing novel.”
─Aytekin Erol, Lawyer Society of Cinematographic
Work Creators, Istanbul

“Emeralds of the Alhambra has it all – mystery, intrigue, duels and interfaith romance…Cressler artfully draws us into the fascinating lives of the novel’s main characters with vivid prose. We experience the blows and blood of the fierce battles between enemies, as well as the luminosity and laughter of spell-bound lovers…Transports readers back to medieval Spain and offers them a peek behind la Convivencia and all the rivalry, romance and complex relationships that existed between Jews, Christians and Muslims.”
─Tayyibah Taylor, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
of Azizah Magazine

“…A story of passionate love…and the spiritual quest for God…Cressler adds a most important element to the mix by weaving in the “problem” of how to reconcile interfaith concerns, [making] this wonderful novel especially prescient for the third millennium.”
─Marian Monahan, Cofounder of Neshama Interfaith Center

“History, conquest, and a captivating love story…Dares us to engage in conversations with those of different faiths. This is more than a novel, it is a resource.”
─Angela Harrington Rice, Senior Executive Producer,
Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters

“[Cressler] has a finely-tuned, sensuous capability to drink in and pass on exquisite sights, smells, colors, sounds and tastes…[At] the deepest level…Cressler helps [the reader] understand the…overwhelmingly powerful force that love truly is…and the role love plays in our experience of the Divine.”
─Father Gene Barrette, Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette

“…The novel’s rich and descriptive narrative serves as a call from the past, challenging us to realize that more is possible than we dare imagine. In its pages are found nearly everything that makes us human…”
─Professor John B. Switzer, Spring Hill College,
Cofounder and Director of the Muslim,
Jewish, Christian Trialogue

About the Author:
JOHN D. CRESSLER is Ken Byers Professor at Georgia Tech (Atlanta), and the author of five non-fiction books. Emeralds of the Alhambra is the first release in the Anthems of al-Andalus series and his debut novel. Visit the author at http://johndcressler.com.

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — “Messages from Beyond”, Michele Livingston’s spiritual guidebook relating the popular medium’s views on metaphysical topics, was #1 thanks to author events and activities. John Cressler’s “Emeralds of the Alhambra,” a soon-to-be-released historical romance based in medieval Spain ranked #2 due to pre-sales.

Sunbury’s sales for May 2013 were up 28% over May 2012, with growth in eBooks outpacing growth in print. “Our strong start continues,” said publisher Lawrence Knorr. “Sales are up 49% year-to-date compared to last year. We’ve just returned from BEA with even more ideas on how to grow the top and bottom lines and increase opportunities for our authors.”

The just-released special Civil War edition of the “Keystone Tombstones” series by Joe Farrell and Joe Farley (with Lawrence Knorr) debuted at #3 thanks to author events and local interest.

Mike Campbell’s “Amelia Earhart – The Truth At Last” moved up a few notches, taking #4 on the list, despite TIGHAR’s attempts to debunk the author’s theories.

Charles “Ken” Godfrey’s “The Final Charge,” a revisionist history fantasy about the Battle of Gettysburg and Pickett’s Charge, returned to the charts thanks to the pending 150th anniversary of the battle.

Doug Brode’s “Patsy!”. about Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement, or lack thereof, in the Kennedy assassination, continued to sell well thanks to a national advertising campaign.

Doug Gibboney’s just released “More Scandals of the Civil War” debuted at #8 thanks to author activities.

The company released five new titles during the month of May:
“Whimsy and Wry” by Guy Graybill
“Diamond Madness” by William Cook
“More Scandals of the Civil War” by Douglas Gibboney
“More Bread, Please” by Markus Roberts
“Keystone Tombstones Civil War” by Farrell, Farley & KNorr

New York, NY — Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in North America, was held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City from Thursday May 30 through Saturday June 1, 2013. The exposition highlighted the latest technology and developments in the book publishing industry, and was a showcase for star and emerging talent. All of the big publishers including Simon & Schuster, Hachette, McGraw-Hill, Penguin, Random House, Scholastic and others, joined with leaders in publishing services such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Createspace, Sony, Kobo and many others. Notables such as Chris Matthews, Stephen King, Jim Carey, Ann Romney and Rick Atkinson were just a small number of the multitudes of well-known authors and personalities present.

Sunbury Press joined with the Independent Book Publisher’s Association (IBPA) and other independent publishers in aisle 2300. Sunbury had a slate of authors appear at their table. Several were photographed or interviewed by the media. Appearing at this year’s expo were: